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The Old School

By Bill Kauffman 26 June 2009 No Comment

My review of Jonathan Zimmerman’s Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory appears in today’s Wall Street Journal (“In One Room, Many Advantages”). The book is well worth reading. Among other things, I learned that Gus Edwards, composer of the grating “School Days,” that cloying hymn to old-fashioned education which I have always hated, was a German immigrant “who spent most of his life in New York City and probably never set foot in a country school.”

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One Tea Party Too Late

by Caleb Stegall on Mar 10, 2010
with 2 Comments

Derbyshire in the latest TAC:
[H]ere are the Tea Partiers vowing to “take back America.” Is there any real prospect of their doing so? If the “time left for us to do so” was short in 1998, how much shorter…

Distracted Achievement Gap

by Rachel Blum on Mar 10, 2010
with No Comments

The problem is that public schools inherit children who are “overentertained and distracted.”

The End of Beauty — And We’re Not Talking Teleologically Here!

by James Matthew Wilson on Mar 9, 2010
with 2 Comments

The concluding installment of “Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic” has appeared on First Principles, a series of essays begun in hopes of analyzing and reforming American conservatism as it exists in our day.

Truck Farm

by Mark T. Mitchell on Mar 9, 2010
with 1 Comment

These two intrepid fellows are out to prove that good food can be grown almost anywhere. This creative garden suggests that growing at least some food is not so much a matter of space and opportunity as it is a…

Interview with Me

by Patrick J. Deneen on Mar 7, 2010
with 9 Comments

Recently I was interviewed by the organizers of the website “The Conservatory.” Here is an excerpt of the interview, as well as a link to the whole discussion.

And the Jays Have it (Republican Bunning Hazards the Impolitic)

by D. W. Sabin on Mar 6, 2010
with 20 Comments

As one of literary bent and so frequently guilty of casting the charge of a Pox On Both Houses at our besotted political parties, I was impressed that at long last, at least one Republican stalwart stood tall and took a beating in the name of fiscal discipline.

T.S. Eliot on Community and Belief

by James Matthew Wilson on Mar 5, 2010
with No Comments

I shall be giving a lecture on Eliot and Stoicism next week; FPR readers are invited.

Exploiting Antiquities

by Rachel Blum on Mar 5, 2010
with 8 Comments

To him, the created world is merely “resources” and fodder for “job creation.”

Where have all the freshman gone?

by Ted V. McAllister on Mar 4, 2010
with 12 Comments

Heaven forbid. . .

Louis Auchincloss, RIP

by John Willson on Mar 4, 2010
with 4 Comments

Louis Auchincloss died January 26, 2010, aged 92. Most of the obits talk about his prolific writing career while working as a serious attorney until age 87. They also emphasize his concern for “eastern elites” and forgotten WASP culture. Most…

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The Old School

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